Fallen
by LostinOblivion
Summary: AU. Through choices or luck the teams lives did not go as planned, leaving them all with regrets and scars. But a series of murders of young women in Manhattan's East Village is about to bring them together. Prentiss/Morgan, a little Prentiss/Hotch and cannon pairings.
1. Chapter 1

_So, I know it's been longer than expected since I posted, but since my last story I've quit a job, started a new job, healed an ulcer, and decided that I'm starting my own business. On top of that my shoulder issues have returned, so my time on the computer is limited. That said, updates probably won't follow any pattern or be particularly frequent. I miss posting though, and this story has been in the works forever so I wanted to start posting it. _

_Thank you ditzie-blonde, tfm, and InMyIvoryTower for their thoughts, tips and general hand-holding while I brainstormed and wrote.  
_

_Thank you lizzabet for creating the wonderful cover. Your story is in the works and it will be chaptered!_

* * *

_"Though I've tried, I've fallen..._  
_I have sunk so low_  
_I messed up_  
_Better I should know_  
_So don't come round here_  
_And tell me I told you so."_

_- Fallen, Sarah McLachlan_

August 27, 1986

Emily stared out the large windows of the sweltering hot, Chinatown bus at a city that was destroying itself. A decade ago, heroin owned the streets, then crack cocaine appeared and it was even worse. It wasn't Emily's first trip to New York City, and she wasn't so naïve that she didn't know what she was heading toward when she boarded the bus. But she had no other options. And she was a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders, she'd be okay. At least, that's what Emily told herself.

The bus, which had left from Washington, D.C., moved through the crowded streets of Chinatown like an old dog dragging a broken leg behind itself. It was light outside, having left early in the morning, but the streets of New York still looked bleak. When the bus finally pulled over, Emily swallowed to calm her nerves. The driver got up from his seat barked some loud, unintelligible words at them, and opened the door. Emily wiped sweat from her head and neck, grabbed her backpack and began the struggle to push herself off the street.

Someone grabbed her arm, and Emily gasped turning to see an older Asian man gesturing that he would help her up. Emily released her caged breath and nodded, allowing the man to help her get up and into the narrow bus aisle. Trying to squeeze herself past the seats to the aisle was made extremely difficult by her heavily swollen belly. She was on her 38th week of pregnancy, and her belly looked massive on her petite fifteen year-old frame. She would be sixteen soon though, so she wasn't all that young.

Emily stepped off the bus into the baking August heat and nearly gagged on the smell of fish. She glanced around and saw two separate fish stalls open, and then tried to breathe through her mouth. The driver was already removing luggage from the compartments underneath the bus, and Emily found her suitcase quickly. She grabbed the handle, and began pulling the suitcase behind herself, thankful for the wheels. She turned off the busy and crowded Canal Street as quickly as she could onto Orchard Street then headed east on Broome Street for several blocks. She passed strung out junkies and heavily made-up prostitutes, many as young as herself, and ducked into a store when she saw a glint of metal in the hand of a man eyeing her.

By the time she found a cheap hotel, The Majesty Hotel (though it was far from majestic), her face was red, her feet were sore and she was beginning to reconsider coming to New York City. She had picked New York City, because it would be easy to hide there. She could blend into the millions of other people, and nobody would give a crap who she was or from where she had come. But could she really live there? Emily forked over enough money for two days in the dive. That should give her enough time to make a decision.

Up in room number E3, Emily bolted the door and dropped her bags. She went over to the window and tried to turn on the air conditioning unit with no success. After fighting it for several minutes, Emily gave in with a huff and slid down to the floor. Tears bit at her eyes as she contemplated her impossible decision. She could stay in New York City, the Wild Wild East, and raise her daughter, or she could return to her mother's home in Washington, D.C. and never see her daughter again.

The ambassador had already arranged a couple to adopt Danni, against Emily's wishes. It didn't matter how much Emily begged or pled, Elizabeth was deaf to all of it. Emily was scheduled for a c-section tomorrow, after the couple arrived, and so had taken her last opportunity to flee. But New York City was dangerous and Emily had limited funds. How on Earth was she going to provide for her child? How was she even going to provide for herself?

The tears biting her eyes grew to puddles that slowly dripped down her cheeks. As if in response to her mother's sorrow, Danni kicked. The soft flutters that had begun months ago were now powerful kicks against the walls of her womb. Emily sniffled. "Hi, Danni."

She rubbed her belly. "We're going to be okay, baby," she told her unborn child. "One way or another, we'll be okay."

Emily braced herself on the busted air conditioning unit and pulled herself up from the floor. She shuffled over to the bed and collapsed onto it, knowing full well that it probably wasn't very clean, and not really caring. After about five minutes, her eyes began to flutter shut.

She was awoken not quite an hour later with an ache in her back and a sharp pain in her abdomen, like someone was tightening a belt around her swollen belly. It took Emily several seconds to realize what it all meant, and when she did, she curled even tighter into herself.

Danni was coming. In a matter of hours, Emily was going to be a fifteen year-old mother.

* * *

May 20, 2006

"Carla, Melanie, we have to go, we're going to be late," Sasha reminded the two younger girls. Curfew was at 12:30, and it was already 12:20.

"Relax, it'll be fine." Melanie laughed, unfazed. She was sixteen, and sporting a barely noticeable baby-bump, courtesy of the 30 year-old boyfriend that had quickly kicked her out after hearing the news.

"I haven't had no damn curfew since I was 12. I can take care of myself," Carla hissed. She was the youngest of the threesome, 15 and already with an arrest record. Never prosecuted though.

"Mama will throw you out if you break the rules." Sasha scowled at the girls, deep brown eyes narrowed. It hadn't been her idea to take them out. They were being restless and Mama asked her to chaperone.

"No, she won't. She'll get pissy, but she's too much a bleedin' heart to do shit."

"You ever seen anyone get thrown-out?" Melanie added to Carla's assertion.

Running a hand through her iron-straightened hair, bottom lip pouting out, Sasha answered. "A couple times. She'll give you a couple chances, but she has a waiting list, and doesn't have time for your shit, so can we please go home?"

"Why the hell do you like it there so much? I had more freedom on the street." Carla stopped and faced her, brown curls blowing in the soft night breeze.

"If you don't like it Carla, then just go back to the streets. No one is forcing you to stay."

A shrill scream sent both girls jumping out of their skin, and their eyes immediately went searching for Melanie. She was by the mouth of an alley, backing away and still screaming.

"What!" Sasha yelled, running over. "What happened!"

Melanie kept screaming until Carla grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. "Cool it, Mel."

"I think she's dead," the sixteen year-old whimpered.

The other two girls looked at each other, then to where Melanie had been standing, and back at each other with wide eyes.

"What do we do?" Carla asked.

Sasha pulled out her cell phone, and found the battery dead. Shit.

* * *

"Cooper and Jareau, Homicide." Detective Jason Cooper held his badge up and maneuvered under the crime scene tape, his new partner following him.

They'd been partnered for under a month, and in about the same amount of time, she'd shown up in the NYPD from some Podunk town in Pennsylvania and a distinct dislike for discussing her past.

When she introduced herself as 'JJ', he'd been instantly grateful that his wife was the only one that called him Jay. Jay and JJ, seriously? It was like some horrible 70's cop show.

"How many murders are you attributing to this guy?" The blond bent down and studied the young victim, bright blue eyes searching for clues. She had a more proper, educated way of speaking than most city cops, and it made her stick out like a sore thumb.

Even the ones with college educations slipped into the NYPD lingo eventually.

"This is number four." He studied the dead teenager, whose age, slim figure, and revealing clothing matched that of the other victims. There was blood on her mouth and bruises face, and messy stab wounds on her stomach and chest. "Damn it."

A gaggle of young voices caught both their attention. A group of girls, one white, one Hispanic, and one African American were standing by a patrol car looking frightened and cold. The black girl was talking loudly to the patrol cops. "We need to get home, we have a curfew!"

The officer was regarding them skeptically.

"I guess those would be our witnesses," JJ said.

He nodded. "Yep, looks like it. Come one, let's let the ME finish."

"Mama is gonna be worried, my cell is dead, I haven't been able to call." The dark-skinned teen was upset and growing more so by the minute.

"I'm Detective Jareau, this is Detective Cooper, you girls found the body?" JJ asked, voice soft and calm.

"Yeah, Melanie kind of found it. She was screaming and all. We really have to get home though."

"You all live together?" The blonde asked. "At like a group home or something?"

"Yeah, or something."

Cooper studied the girls. "You said Mama's going to be worried?"

She nodded. "We missed curfew."

He nodded, smiling slightly. "You three are Haven girls." JJ shot him a puzzled look, but he ignored it.

"Yeah, we are."

He looked to the patrol officers. "It's alright, we'll take them from here."

"We will?" JJ asked.

"Yeah. We'll give you a ride home, girls, and I'll clear it with 'Mama', we just have to ask you a few questions first." It never failed to amuse him how many of the girls took to calling her Mama.

JJ leaned close to him. "Who the hell is _Mama_?"

He chuckled. "You'll like her, trust me."

* * *

_Two more notes, for those of you who don't remember, Cooper is the NYPD cop that Emily got flirty with and was shot in Lo-Fi and Mayhem. And the team members will appear as the story progresses, but it may take a while before some of them show up. Morgan should be in the next chapter. Thank you for reading and please review!  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you all for the favorites, reviews and follows for this story. This story has me a little nervous, so that all means a lot to me. One little warning that I don't think I gave in the last chapter, in this story the team members have each made a mess of their lives (to varying degrees) and have done and will do things you aren't going to like and that their cannon counterparts wouldn't do. Just wanted to put that out there, because the end of this chapter is a little bit uh, unflattering? Anyway, thank you all for reading and thank you to anyone who reviews, favorites or follows!_

* * *

Emily had been pacing around the hallway downstairs for the better part of an hour. All the girls were in except three, two of whom were new, but Sasha knew better than to be out an hour and a half after curfew. And she wasn't answering her cell phone. She made sure all her girls had cell phones just for this purpose, but it kept going to voice mail.

She could hear some of the other girls in the living room, laughing at the voices on the TV. The sounds of the club music pulsating down the hallway, even through the door that separated the two areas downstairs. Wendy was running things, as she'd been doing more and more often lately. Emily didn't know what she'd do if the young woman ever decided to move on. Giggles erupted to her right as a handful of girls erupted from the living room.

"Are you guys finally ready to go to bed?" They were some of her youngest charges, ones without children, and the luxury of staying up all hours. Except Nikki, who was so terrified of her pregnancy that she stayed up with the other girls just to exhaust herself so she could sleep.

She was only 14.

Megan yawned. "Yeah, I think we're ready."

"Well make sure you keep it down when you go upstairs, and don't forget to brush your teeth," she reminded without even thinking about it.

Ella's happy expression turned serious, and her brown eyes seemed to darken. "They aren't home yet, are they?"

Emily ran a hand over the girl's head. "They will be soon. Go up to bed."

All four girls looked somber, all remembering what happened the last time a girl didn't come home. Ella was the first to hug her. "Goodnight, Mama."

"Goodnight, sweetie, and try not to worry." She nodded and headed up, the other three following, two of them hugging her, and all three calling her mama and saying some version of good night.

She had never asked them to call her Mama. One of the girls had started doing it years ago, and the others had steadily begun to follow, until over the years, it just became commonplace. It was always their choice if and when they did. Emily knew how damaged most of them were, and how hard it was for them to trust. That term of endearment was a sign that they'd come to trust her.

Emily continued pacing. But not for long, she heard a key in the front door and froze, staring at it. It was akin to watching a knob turn in a horror movie, it felt like it took that long before the door was flung open, and Sasha hurried in, Melanie and Carla behind her.

"Oh, thank god," Emily breathed.

Sasha threw herself at Emily, holding her tightly, and sniffling. "She was dead, Mama. Just like Josie."

"What? Who was dead?" She looked at the younger girls; Melanie's eyes were red and swollen, and Carla looked completely devoid of emotion.

"Hey Em."

Her head whipped up to the familiar voice. "Cooper? What happened?"

He stepped in the front door, ushering the girls gently out of the way, and a woman with long blonde hair and ocean blue eyes came in behind him. "These three stumbled onto a body, same killer we've been looking at the last couple months."

Her mouth sat open as she looked between the upset teenagers and the tired-looking detectives. She inhaled. "Have the girls given statements and answered all your questions?"

"Enough for tonight," he said.

She nodded, and turned her attention to the kids. "Go upstairs and get ready for bed, I'll check on you in a little while, okay?"

Sasha nodded, looked at the other two, and headed upstairs. Carla glanced at Emily, said a quiet goodnight, and followed Sasha. Melanie didn't move.

Carla and Sasha were both used to violence and the ugly side of life. Melanie had come from the suburbs, following a man twice her age who had professed to love her, but threw her out when she announced that she was pregnant. She had tried to go back home, but her parents refused to take her back.

"Melanie?" She said gently.

She looked up, tears hanging in her eyes. "She was…she was all pale and bluish and, and her eyes were still open and there was all this blood and—"

"Shhh," Emily soothed, cutting her off before another word came. She rested a hand on the girl's shoulder, and to her surprise, Melanie stepped closer, collapsing against her, and sobbing into her shoulder. Emily rubbed her back. "It's alright, Melanie, you're safe here."

"I want to go home, I want to see my Mom and Dad," she cried.

Emily grimaced. "Yeah, I know you do." Unfortunately for Melanie, her parents didn't want to see her.

* * *

JJ was looking around the small kitchen, glancing at the coffeemaker in the corner as it sputtered and spewed into the pot. Emily, or 'Mama' as the girls apparently called her, led them to the kitchen, started the coffee, and left to attend to Melanie and check on the two others. 'Mama' was not what she expected. She had expected her to be older, harder-edged, a disciplinarian. Honestly, she'd pictured a woman with too much make-up, an expensive fur coat, and a chain-smoking habit. Certainly not the gentle maternal figure she'd met.

She glanced at her partner. Cooper was entirely unbothered by the place, or the woman who had so graciously accepted them into her…whatever the hell this place was, and offered them coffee. He seemed awfully friendly with this woman.

Finally she cleared her throat. "You aren't bothered that she pimps kids?"

He looked over. "'Scuse me?"

She nodded toward the door. "You and this Emily seem pretty friendly. Those girls are barely at the age of consent, if they even are."

His eyebrows rose, and he looked almost amused. "You think Em is a pimp?"

She nodded. What else was she supposed to think?

He chuckled. "Man, you couldn't be more wrong."

"Then what the hell is this place?"

"This floor? Mostly it's a club. The dance club, Mother Night, is on one side, and the other half is, Firefly, a domination club, though I've never actually been in it. All those women who work in there are of age, by the way," he said pointedly. "I've only been upstairs once, she doesn't really let men up there, but it's a place for girls like those three to call home."

"What, you're telling me she takes in these girls?"

"Yeah, think of it as an unlicensed girl's home. She takes in them, and often their kids."

JJ frowned. "And, she calls it Haven?"

"Actually no, I think it was one of the girls years ago that came up with the name Haven House. It caught on with people on the street, and after a while, Emily and the girls started calling it that too."

"Right."

Emily appeared at the moment, almost in perfect timing to the coffee finishing, and set about grabbing cups, and setting them on the table with a small carton of creamer and a bowl of sugar. She poured them each a cup, and left the pot on the table. She slid into the seat closest to Cooper and her whole body seemed to sag.

He pulled out the Polaroid of the dead girl, and slid it across the table. "Do you recognize her?"

JJ watched the woman scan the picture, brown eyes moving back and forth rapidly, a lingering sadness in them. She let out a breath. "No, I've never see her before…she was killed the same way as Josie and the other girls?"

Cooper's old partner had retired two weeks ago, and since then, JJ had worked extra hard to catch herself up on all their old cases. Josie Reynolds was the third victim of the serial killer targeting runaways, underage prostitutes, teen junkies, and every other young, destitute female out there. Realization hit in seconds.

"Josie lived here."

Emily met her eyes, and nodded. "I don't think we were introduced, Detective." She extended a hand. "Emily Berne."

"Jennifer Jareau, but I go by JJ." She found herself responding pleasantly to the woman, but something still made her cautious.

"You replaced Tommy."

"Come on now," Cooper joked, "no one can replace Tommy Trudeau, New York's very own Sherlock Holmes."

Emily smiled at that.

"You knew Detective Trudeau as well?" JJ asked.

"Actually, I knew Tommy before Cooper was partnered with him." It seemed like there was more to that story, but Emily didn't add to it.

They spoke for a while longer, Emily patiently answering all of their questions, and promising to bring the girls to Homicide South for further questioning tomorrow. She led them back down the hallway to the door they'd come in, stopping suddenly. "Oh, I almost forgot, I have a couple of things for Maria and the kids. Let me just pop into my office and grab them."

When she'd disappeared down the hallway, JJ turned to Cooper. "She buys things for your wife and kids?"

He shrugged. "I introduced them once, they kind of hit it off. Gave Maria some good advice on pregnancy and babies. "

JJ looked back to the hallway and silence reigned for all of 30 seconds, before she turned back to her partner. "Does she have her own?"

He looked blankly at her. "Her own what?"

"Kids."

"You mean besides the ones upstairs?"

JJ nodded.

He inhaled, made an unsure face, his head bobbing from one side to the other. "In her office there's a couple pictures of this little girl, looks just like Em, and Emily is holding her in one of the pictures. But…I've never seen the girl here, or heard Em mention her or any other kids besides her brood upstairs."

She eyed him. "That doesn't concern you?"

He gave her a look. "If that kid is actually Emily's, it hasn't come to any harm by her, that much I know."

"Yeah, but a disappeared kid is still a disappeared kid, Cooper."

He sighed. "You ask her about it then."

She rolled her eyes, just as Emily was returning with a bag. She handed it to Cooper. "The chocolates are for Maria, don't touch them. And tell her to eat in on a full stomach or it might give her heartburn since she's pregnant."

He scoffed. "How come I never get anything in these gift deliveries?"

Now Emily rolled her eyes. "I'll grab you a tie next time I'm shopping."

"A tie? Lame…"

She smiled. "Scoot, I need to check on my club, and if you leave now, you can get your DD5s done and be home in time to kiss the kids good morning." Then she turned to JJ. "It was nice meeting you, Detective Jareau."

"You as well, Ms. Berne."

"Emily," she corrected.

"JJ," she said. Emily smiled and nodded, waving and closing the door.

"See, I told you, you'd like her."

"I didn't say I like her."

He grinned. "That almost-smile says you do, Jareau."

"JJ," she repeated.

* * *

May 21, 2006

Derek Morgan woke up with his head pounding, and the heat of naked bodies around him.

Neither was uncommon for him.

He leaned up over the naked form of a woman, and immediately winced at the light pouring in from the open blinds. He blinked until his eyes adjusted and pulled himself to a sitting position.

The woman who'd been blocking the sun for him was white, straight blonde hair falling over her back and obviously fake breasts. The woman on his other side had darker skin, Hispanic probably, though if she'd told him her ethnic background, he didn't remember. Her breasts were real, naturally large, but he was pretty sure she pumped up her bee-stung lips. Morgan shook his head and extracted himself from the bed, leaving his companions sleeping.

He slipped on boxers and stumbled out to the living room of the hotel suite, stretching and grunting as he moved. The tray was on the table where they'd left it, along with an empty bottle of Jack. Derek picked up the discarded razor blade and shifted the fine white powder into a line. He bent over positioning his nostril directly above the top of the powder line, plugged the other nostril, and inhaled as he moved down the line. Then he fell back, and stared at the room.

It was trashed.

Clothes were scattered about, the sofa cushions were laying around haphazardly, and there was vomit by the armchair. His helmet - black with a yellow stripe, and the red, blue and yellow diamonds of the Pittsburgh, Steelers – was laying discarded under the table. He vaguely remembered one of the girls dancing around with it on her head, before stumbling and landing on her ass, giggling like a fool. Peeking out from under the cushionless sofa was the edge of a frame. Derek pulled it free and came face to face with his mother and sisters all beaming with pride as he stood in his Steelers uniform.

What had he done with his life? What had he done _to_ his life?

He had a Bachelors degree in Prelaw from Northwestern University and a JD from the same. A JD it took him years to complete while maintaining a career as a pro football player, and a JD that he was more proud of than anything he'd ever done as a quarterback.

He was supposed to be a cop like his father. Instead he was a goddamn mess.

Morgan hurled the photo at the wall, dropping his head into his hands when it crashed and shattered against the wall. He was going to get clean. He was going to get clean. He'd been telling himself that for months now, years even, but three aborted stints at rehab centers didn't change anything. He'd tried though. He'd check in, settle in, and then withdrawal would get bad, and he'd call his manager begging for help. Instead of telling him to shut the fuck up and deal, Jerry, the enabler, would sneak him in coke and steroids.

"Baby? Baby what's wrong?" The blond stumbled out first, attempting to crouch down, but collapsing onto the floor like a rag doll. The brunette stopped in the doorway, glancing from the broken frame to the broken man. She began to gather her clothes.

"Go home," he told the blonde.

"Hey baby, it's okay, I can help you. You tell me what hurts, I'll rub it better," she cooed, running a hand over his shoulder.

Derek shook her off. "Go home."

"But you look so sad, Baby – "

She went to touch him again, and Morgan caught her wrist and held it tightly. "Get lost, damn it! Get the fuck out of here!"

Her eyes widened with fright, and she jerked away, immediately snatching up clothing from the floor. The Hispanic woman was already dressed and ready to go. She didn't even bother with a goodbye. The blonde fled soon after, leaving Derek with a trashed hotel room and a massive hangover.

He would get clean. He would get clean. He had too.

Morgan ran his hands over his shaved head and struggled to come up with a plan. Then he did, or at least the beginning of a plan. It came in the fuzzy memory of a bar waitress with a smile on her face and a lifetime written into her eyes though she was barely old enough to drink herself.

Haven, she'd called it. The place that changed her life, that got her clean. But that wasn't why he remembered it. No, he remembered it because Haven was located in a nightclub named after one of his favorite books from one of his favorite authors.

Mother Night.

His favorite novel, and maybe his way to salvage his life.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do we really have to do this?" Melanie whined in her ear, hand rhythmically sliding back and forth over her baby bump.

"You found a body, of course you have to do this." Emily sighed. She was sleep-deprived and anxious about the safety of her girls. It tended to make her cranky.

"I don't like no cops," Carla grunted.

"I'm not generally their biggest fan, but I trust Detective Cooper. Nobody is looking to jam you up Carla, they just want to find the guy who killed that girl."

"And Josie," Sasha reminded.

Emily didn't comment. They'd only buried Josie last week with no help from the young woman's estranged family. When told her daughter was dead, Josie's mother hand grunted and hung up. Emily would kill to hold Daniella again, to tell her how much she loved and missed her, and that woman had thrown her daughter away like she was nothing.

Emily had ached for Josie, even if her mother hadn't.

"Ms. Berne?" An officer asked, clearing his throat. He looked barely old enough to buy a beer, and a little boy scout-ish in his perfectly pressed patrol blues.

She stood up. "Yes, that's me."

"Detective Cooper is ready to see you now."

"Thank you, Officer." She gestured the girls up, and motioned them to follow. They walked down a hallway, through a door, and into a sea of desks, most filled with busy detectives. People buzzed around the room, some in file cabinets, others getting coffee, one signing the clipboard a uniformed officer brought, and on and on.

"Em!" She turned at Cooper's voice, and found him approaching them with Detective Jareau beside him.

"Any leads?"

He shook his head sadly, and then sighed. "So girls, we need to take your statements separately. You're minors so you're allowed a parent during questioning, so if your more comfortable, we can go one by one, so you can all have Emily in with you."

"I can do it on my own, I'll be okay." Sasha held her head high, chin jutted out, proof to the world that she'd endure.

Cooper nodded. "Okay…Melanie?"

"I want Mama," she answered quickly. Emily started at the girl's use of "Mama", a first for her. It always startled her the first time.

"Carla?" Cooper asked.

She didn't respond. Her face was blank, but her eyes were searching the room and the five people in her current orbit. Emily knew what this was. Carla was scared, and didn't want to admit it.

She cleared her throat. "I'll go in with Carla too, if she doesn't need me I'll leave."

Cooper nodded. "Okay, JJ why don't you take Josie, I'll take Melanie, and Carla, do you mind waiting at my desk until we're ready for you?"

She shook her head, and sat at the desk he gestured to, while the rest of them followed Cooper and JJ.

Melanie's interview went pretty smoothly. She was eager to help and leave, so she answered everything truthfully and without hesitation. The only place she got stuck was talking about what she observed when she found the body.

Carla's interview got a little complicated.

"So you hear Melanie scream and then?" JJ asked.

"She was screamin' like someone was trying to kill _her_. I told her to chill out."

"And she quieted down?"

Carla nodded. "Yeah, and she pointed to the dead girl."

"Did you notice anything or anyone near the dead girl, or the scene?" Cooper asked.

"No. I was busy looking at the girl and Mel, she was really freaked."

JJ frowned. "But you weren't scared?"

Carla shook her head.

"Not even uncomfortable?"

"No," she said, and paused. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"Well, I was a pretty freaked the first time I saw a dead body."

"I puked," Cooper added.

"Wasn't the first time I seen a dead person."

Emily tensed. Carla hadn't told her much about her life before she'd come to Haven, and Emily knew asking just made damaged young women and girls like Carla run away.

JJ and Cooper shared a look, and Cooper looked at Emily, before turning back to Carla. "When was the first time Carla?"

"When I was 12. My father beat my mother to death."

Emily rested a hand gently on the girl's shoulder, relieved when she didn't shake it off. Her relief was silenced at the sudden ashen tone and stricken look Detective Jareau was wearing. Part of her was ready to chalk it up to her never having dealt with street kids before, and part of her was too curious to write it off.

"You know what else, Detectives?" Carla said.

"What's that Carla?" Coop asked.

"I wished I was her…the dead girl."

* * *

JJ was pacing. She couldn't stop, anxiety was breeding nervous energy, and she had to burn it off somehow. They were in the conference room they'd taken over with case materials, waiting on Lieutenant Valenti to show up.

"She didn't look surprised." She finally blurted.

Cooper sighed. "Who didn't look surprised about what?"

"Emily. When Carla said she wished she was dead, she didn't look surprised."

"She deals with those kids everyday all day and has been for about a decade, I doubt it's the first time she's heard that."

She turned to her partner. "Why does she do it?"

Cooper shrugged. "Damned if I know."

"You've never asked?"

"Sure I have, but she just says that someone needs to take care of those girls."

JJ was about to respond when Valenti pushed his way into the office, a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of folders in the other. He landed in the chair with more force than necessary and sipped from his mug before looking at them. "So, what do you have so far?"

Cooper inhaled. "First vic showed up seven weeks ago. Jenny Banks, 16, African American, runaway, addicted to heroin, working as a hooker. Second vic was killed five weeks ago, 15 years old, Hanna Lee, Korean American, runaway, living on the street, possibly a hooker, we don't know. Third victim was killed two weeks ago, age 17, white, Josie Freeman, runaway, drug addict that got clean about eight months ago. She lived at Haven. Last night's victim was found by three girls that live at Haven, but Emily wasn't able to ID her, says she's not a Haven girl. She was also white, also a teen, also clearly living on the street, and the ME has her now. So far we've got two weeks, three weeks, and two weeks between kills, and I bet this guy isn't going to be waiting three or even two weeks before he snatches another girl."

JJ frowned at Valenti. "You know Emily too?"

He turned his dark eyes onto her. "Yep. My niece lived at Haven for a while."

"Your niece?" She gaped. There was no shame in his face, no disappointment.

"Yeah, she got into Oxy because of school friends. Ran away from my brother's house, we had no idea where she was for months. Tommy went to visit Emily, and saw my niece with some of the other girls. Emily helped her get clean, and let her stay there until she was ready to go back home. Without Haven, she'd probably be dead now or in juvy. She's starting community college in the fall."

JJ could see the pride in his eyes, and the relief. It explained the anger that had washed through his eyes when he looked at the photos Cooper handed him. Photos of their latest victim, who could easily have been any of the girls at Haven.

"Where was this girl found?" Valenti asked.

"Five blocks away from Haven. The three girls were on their way home when they found her," Cooper said.

Valenti waved a hand. "The first girl, Banks, she was found near there too, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, barely two blocks away. But Lee wasn't near there at all."

"Do you think this involves Haven, sir?" JJ asked.

He sighed. "It's something to keep an eye on. Right now, all we've got is a pretty specific victimology, but even that could be chalked up to convenience. Cooper you took that Bureau seminar, this say anything to you?"

"Beyond what you just said? Well, the age is pretty specific. A lot of these guys go after hookers, because they're easy, but this guy goes after only teenage hookers."

"What's that mean?" JJ asked.

"Honestly? I don't have a clue. Could be he likes them young, could be that some girl ripped his heart out when he was a teenager, and now he's killing her over and over again." He turned to Valenti. "I'll be honest boss, that whole profiling deal seemed like a lot of guesswork to me."

The Lieutenant grunted. "Taxpayer money well spent then."

Cooper shrugged. "Maybe I'm just an old-fashioned cop."

"Then go use old-fashioned cop methods, and catch me this bastard before he kills another girl." He tossed the photos down, snagged his coffee and headed out.

* * *

Sunlight was pouring down on him, with not a sight of a cloud, and Morgan was cursing the weather. He squinted behind his sunglasses as he made his way down the street through Alphabet City. He got off Avenue C, and walked down 13th street, almost to the end. He passed the massive site of ConEd, New York City's power company straight to the end of the block. This was a ways away from the other night clubs, but when he finally saw the sign for Mother Night, he understood why.

It was a warehouse. Not a huge one, at least by warehouse standards, but pretty damn big for being in Manhattan. He'd bet the rent was astronomical.

The sign was black with the name of the club carved into it and painted yellow. There were stars dotted here and there, and Morgan noticed something that made him lean closer and squint.

A constellation. He only recognized the one, but he'd bet the other groups of stars were constellations too. His bitter, miserable expression lightened slightly, already feeling a connection to the woman who owned this place.

Morgan tried the knob and found it locked. He knocked lightly on the door. If Haven was located at this place, someone had to be around. No once answered. Derek knocked louder, fearing that if he didn't get help now, he'd lose his nerve.

Locks clinked and the door finally opened to reveal a young woman who looked to barely be in her twenties. Her dark hair was cut short, and her lips were pursed, eyes narrowed at him. Her clothes were a trendy style, but inexpensive brands, and she carried herself with an earned confidence. She stood between the open door and the club, refusing him entrance.

"This is a _night_ club, sir. We aren't open now."

"I'm not here for the club, I need to talk to the owner. I can't remember her name." With as much as he'd been drinking, he was happy to have just remembered the name of the club.

"What do you want with a woman whose name you don't know?"

"I'm here about Haven."

The girl bristled instantly. "What the hell do you want with Haven?"

He heard footsteps as two more girls appeared, younger than the angry woman staring at him, trying to peer around her. "I need help."

Her expression softened. "I think you came to the wrong place." She turned toward the girls. "Go get Mama."

One girl hurried off, and the woman let him inside, gesturing to a table. "I'm Wendy," she said.

He held out a hand. "Derek."

Wendy frowned. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Before he could answer, the younger girl still in the room piped up. "You're Derek Morgan, aren't you?"

He nodded. "You watch football?"

"My father did. He hated the Steelers."

"Uh, sorry."

She smiled. "I hated my him, celebrated in my head every time you guys beat one of his teams."

He had no idea how to respond to that, and was fortunately saved from doing so by the appearance of a woman. A beautiful woman.

She was around his age, with dark waves that brushed her shoulders and even darker eyes that seemed to find his almost instantly. Her red satiny top contrasted with her light skin and dark features and made her look like sin in human form. She did not look happy to see him.

"What can I do for you?" She asked.

"Well, I was told that Haven was a place a person can go to get help."

She was silent for several seconds as her eyes traveled over him, seeming to almost inventory his body. Then she met his eyes again. "What are you on? Besides the Arnolds."

"Just coke. Powder."

"You can't detox from both at once, or at least you shouldn't. Get yourself off the steroids and then go to a rehab facility."

"I've tried rehab, it hasn't worked for me."

Her tongue flicked up over her top lip. "I don't know who you spoke to, but Haven is for young girls with no money and no family willing to help. Not grown men with $200 sunglasses."

He pulled the sunglasses off the top of his head. "I can pay you. Name your price."

She thrust her hands on her hips. "You don't seem to get it. I don't take men or boys, only girls."

"Why?"

"Because most of the girls here have been used and abused by some man in their lives, they don't trust them and don't feel comfortable around them. This is a place for them to feel safe."

"I won't hurt anyone, I swear."

She snorted. "So you tell me, but I don't know you from Adam."

"Derek Morgan," he said, thrusting a hand out. "Ms. ?"

"Berne, Emily."

He took her hand and shook it gently. "I grew up in Chicago with two sisters and a mother, all three of whom I respect the hell out of, and I pulled myself out of the ghetto to earn my BA and JD, both from Northwestern U… And I can't remember when it was that I lost my self-respect."

"You're a lawyer?"

"Naw, Mama, he's the quarterback for the Steelers."

Emily turned from the girl back to him, eyes narrowed. "A pro football player? Really? And you come _here_ for help?"

"I told you, rehab doesn't work for me."

"And what makes you think Haven will be any different?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm desperate. And I figured with the name you picked for your club, that maybe you know what it's like to wake up as someone you don't recognize. If you can't help me, well I may just be a lost cause."

"What do you know about the name of my club?" Her guard dropped the tiniest bit.

"It's the name of a book about an American spy on trial for being a Nazi. Really though, it's about how nothing is black and white. It's about doubts. It's about becoming something you never imagined being without even realizing it."

She began to soften before him. "You're a Vonnegut fan?"

"Read them all when I was a kid, I couldn't get enough of them. Mother Night is my favorite."

She smiled. "Mine too. "Be careful who you pretend to be…"

"…for you are who you pretend to be," he finished, grinning.

Emily sighed. "No one is a lost cause, Mr. Morgan."

"Derek, please," he said. She bit her lip, and still appeared reluctant. "Please, Ms. Berne, I'm desperate."

"Emily," she said. "You have to understand, I don't have the facilities for men, I'd have to keep you in my apartment."

"But, you'd help me?"

"Have you gone through withdrawal before?"

He nodded. "Not completely, but I started to a couple times."

"Then you know it's miserable and difficult, like going through Hell. And that this will only work if you're really set on it."

"I am, I promise."

She flicked her tongue out again. "Alright, this is how this is going to work. You're going to spend the next week getting off the steroids. Don't go cold turkey, do it in steps. Be clean and functional before you get back here. Tell your wife or girlfriend or whoever that you're going away for a while, five days minimum—"

"I don't have a wife or a girlfriend," he interrupted.

"Then tell whoever cares if you aren't around. When you get here, I take your phone and keys, and I search your bag. You'll be in a room with a twin bed, leather restraints and locks on the outside of the door. This is for my safety and yours, I've gotten decked more than once by a junkie desperate for a fix. You won't be in the restraints unless it becomes necessary. If any of that bothers you, you can walk out now and not come back."

He nodded. "It sounds a little freaky, but I get it."

"Good. We'll discuss price when you come back." She moved behind the bar, and reached for something under the register. When she walked back she was writing on something and handed it to him. "My cell is on the back. Call me in a few days and let me know how it's going with the steroids."

"I will, thank you."

She smirked. "Oh don't thank me yet, Derek. This is going to suck for you."

Emily went to turn, but he caught her hand. He was startled by how quickly she tensed, body defensive, eyes cold, ready to fight back if need be. He swallowed and backed off, holding his hands up. "I just wanted to uh, say thank you."

Her body relaxed and she nodded. "You're welcome."

* * *

_A/N: There will be no chapter next weekend, because I will be out of town. Thank you all for reading and reviews are always welcome._


	4. Chapter 4

May 26, 2006

Emily was sitting at one of Mother Night's tables, three different accounting logs open in front of her. Wendy was to her right, Keesha to her left, and Amy was opposite her, each with their own list of expenditures and needs. Wendy handled Mother Night, and stood in as general manager when Emily wasn't available, Keesha handled Firefly, and Amy managed upstairs, what most people called Haven. None of them looked forward to the often very long and very involved budgeting meetings. Once upon a time, Emily handled it all herself, and even today she wondered how she'd managed.

Of course, nothing was this big or involved back then. Firefly used to be Mother Night, the domination scene a quicker money-maker than a regular nightclub. Then she'd expanded, renamed Mother Night as Firefly, and made the dance club Mother Night. Haven…that had grown all on it's own, from two girls huddled on air mattresses with sleeping bags to what was practically a small college dorm.

"Okay, so I'm budgeting an extra $500 so Firefly can update some of it's old equipment, spend wisely please, Keesha. And Wendy, you're booking that punk band which should make up the difference with the additional cover charge, so we're still good by the end of the month." The girls nodded. Emily looked around. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, we're probably going to have to switch around some beds soon, and we won't have room in the nursery if Nikki keeps her baby," Amy said.

"Nikki's baby won't be in the nursery for a while."

Amy nodded. "But we're going to have to move Nina's baby into the nursery to make room for Nikki."

"But there's only Nina and…shit. We already moved Corrine into the baby-room, didn't we?"

"Yeah, when you brought Nikki into your apartment. So, the baby-room is full now with Nina, Corrine and Reina."

Nikki was about due to deliver any minute and scared to death, so Emily had moved the young girl to keep her close. It seemed to make Nikki feel a bit more secure. Corrine was due in six weeks. Emily bit her lip, and tried to mentally picture the rooms upstairs. "Okay, Nina's baby is plenty old enough to be in the nursery."

"Yeah, but the nursery is already full," Amy said. The nursery was equipped to sleep three infants and two toddlers at any given time, and the baby room slept three girls with bassinets for their newborns.

"Alright," Emily held up a hand. "I think I've got this, try and follow me. Sasha is ready to move out, she just turned 18, and so is Angie. I've almost got an apartment worked out with Pete. Carson goes with Angie, which will free up a crib for Nina's baby. So, we move Nina out of the baby room, and set-up a foldable crib for her son, until Angie and Carson have left. How's that?"

"That should work, but doesn't Sasha want to get custody of her sister, are four people going be able to fit into that apartment?" Keesha asked.

"It's a two bedroom, and Sasha already knows that she'll have to share with her sister. She doesn't care, she just wants her away from their uncle. And Carson is a baby, he can share with his mother." It would be cramped, but it would also be affordable. Pete's building wasn't much, but it was clean and he was eternally grateful to Emily for getting his daughter away from a violent pimp.

Pimps, drug dealers and abusive fathers and stepfathers kept her second floor full with a long waiting list. Emily wished she could take them all in.

Wendy was the first to move at the knock on the door. Emily was exhausted from all the budgeting, which they'd had actually started last night and quit when none of them could keep their eyes open.

"Mom," Wendy called, moving back and allowing in a familiar dark-skinned man with a bag slung over his shoulder and two hundred dollar shades perched on top of his head.

"Oh shit," she said.

"Hello to you too, Emily." He smiled, eyebrows high on his forehead.

"No, it isn't…never mind," she said. "I just forgot you were coming."

"Liar. You didn't think I'd show-up did you?"

"Honestly? No, I didn't."

He held up his hands. "Well, I'm here."

Derek Morgan, the coke and steroid abusing quarterback, had this smile that Emily had serious trouble ignoring. It wasn't narcissistic, like so many jocks, or predatory, like so many guys, but almost sweet, no kind. That's what it was, he seemed genuinely kind. She cleared her throat, and looked at Amy. "Can you get Nikki please?"

Amy nodded and headed toward the hallway. Derek turned to her. "Who's Nikki?"

"One of the girls. She's in the room I have to put you in, so I have to move her to my bedroom."

"Where are you going to sleep?"

"My couch is a pull-out."

He snorted. "What are you, Mother Theresa?"

"Hardly. I said I'd help you, so I making that happen. Besides, with you detoxing, neither of us will be sleeping much, I promise you that."

"Yeah, I know." She watched his mood fall, not unlike his gaze, which was suddenly fixed on the ground.

She was about to speak when Wendy waved her over. She was only twenty-one, younger than Amy and Keesha, but Emily had known her for much longer. Wendy had been the first person to inhabit the room with the twin bed. The room was originally designed for Daniella, but instead became a sanctuary for a terrified 11 year-old. Danni had never spent a night in that room.

Wendy leaned close. "Mom, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Actually, I'm sure it's not.

"Then why help him out?"

Emily sighed. "I can't stand the way he said he was a lost cause."

"He isn't the only person in this city that thinks he's a lost cause," Keesha said, moving closer.

"Yeah, and you can't take them all in," Wendy added.

"I know that, thank you both," She said sharply. Then Emily shrugged. "I guess I'm still a sucker for a guy who likes books."

"Well, be careful, okay?"

Emily turned to her. "Wendy, this is not the first time I've detoxed a coke addict."

"It's the first time it's not a teenage girl. He could hurt you. And you're the only mother I have, the only mother most of us here have."

She squeezed Wendy's hand, and gave both girls a firm look. "I'll be fine, and I'll be careful. I don't want you to worry, okay?"

They both nodded as Amy showed up with Nikki.

* * *

Morgan found his mind wandering to the drug education programs from when he was a kid. Some cop came to school, surveyed the room of piss-poor, inner city mostly African American kids, and his eyes said even that that he had no hope for them. Not for them. They would be hookers, gangbangers, and junkies, and nothing could stop that from happening. At least nothing that would be offered to these kids.

Morgan remembered that look like it was yesterday. He remembered, because he promised himself, as he glared at the cop, that he wouldn't be a junkie or a gangbanger or a disgrace to his mother, his sisters, or his father, or his race. He'd be better than that, he'd succeed, and he'd pull himself up out of the ghetto and he'd make his mama proud.

But here he was.

His body ached and his skin crawled. He glanced at the door again, tempted to make a break for it, but knowing that she'd never let him get that far. And what was the point anyway? All he was, was a junkie. He'd failed his family.

And one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen was sitting, completely calm and unbothered, alternately texting and scribbling on a yellow legal pad, working like it was any other day. Why did she even care? He wasn't worth her time.

He glanced at the door again, and then at the window before focusing on Emily. "How many times have you done this?"

Her head bobbed up. "Sorry?"

"How many times have you detoxed people?"

"From coke? Uh, I don't know, a dozen maybe?"

He nodded, and then asked. "From anything?"

Her mouth opened and then she shrugged. "No idea. I don't do booze and I don't do heroine, not unless I can get a nurse from the clinic to participate. And I'm very selective with crystal meth."

"That's nasty shit."

"You ever tried it?"

He shook his head. "No. That's stuff is too much for me." He frowned. "You ever tried it?"

"Nope."

"You ever tried any drugs?"

"Nothing harder than alcohol and cigarettes." She finished a text, and looked up, setting the phone on her legal pad.

His eyebrows rose and knit together. "How'd you end up treating junkies then?"

"I don't just treat junkies. I take former prostitutes, former gang members, girls that have escaped from trafficking rings, girls thrown out by their families, girls abused and raped by the people they're supposed to trust most. I take them all."

"And now some idiot that made a mess of his life."

She offered a soft smile that he didn't deserve. "Everyone screws up at something at some point in their lives. It doesn't make you worthless."

He didn't respond to that comment, but slid down on the twin bed that barely fit his large frame. "Why do you do this?"

Morgan watched her breathe in deeply, and then let it out slowly. "Because who else will?"

He had no answer. He turned over so his back was to both Emily and the door, and curled his legs up and wrapped his arms around himself.

* * *

Emily hadn't been gone from the room for more than a couple minutes, while she'd spoken with Wendy, but Derek Morgan was already in the full throes of a nightmare when she returned. She was glad he'd gotten sleep at all, since last night was even worse. He'd laid curled up in bed his first night and hardly moved, though she knew he didn't really sleep. Tonight, his second night, he slept, but it wasn't very restful. This was his second nightmare already for tonight.

She rested a hand on his back, and found him soaked with sweat. He twitched at her touch, and his eyes flew open. Emily was so startled by the fear she saw in them that she stepped back. She knew that look, she'd seen it before on girls whose detox-fueled dreams pulled up moments from their pasts, memories of abuse and rape. It was not a look she'd expected to see on the football player's face.

"It's okay," she told him. "You're safe here."

The look in his eyes softened, but he remained curled into himself, reluctant to accept her help. She ran her hand lightly over his back, and when he didn't tense, she applied more pressure, trying to soothe him with touch. When his body began to loosen, she took a chance and spoke again. "Can you sit up, Derek? We need to get you into fresh clothes."

The football player didn't move immediately, and Emily let him take his time pulling himself up. She gave him a smile, but he offered her only a broken look in return. His shields were down, and he wasn't a pro football player anymore. Now the Derek Morgan that looked at her was the boy who'd been betrayed and abused by someone he'd trusted. She allowed herself to wonder at it for only a minute, did his father beat him, his coach touch him, or maybe a neighborhood creep had preyed on the young boy he had been? Then she got back to business.

"Take your shirt off." He did as she asked, while Emily reached into one of the storage bins under the bed and grabbed a package of baby wipes. She'd long ago learned that it was easier to use baby wipes than try and drag someone into a shower. And he hadn't thrown-up on himself, so this would be easy.

But he was not what she was used to, not even close. Emily froze as she saw his bare chest. He wasn't using the steroids all that seriously, she could tell, because his muscle while sculpted, was natural and fit his frame well. She shook her head, and offered him the wipes. Derek didn't move to take one. He just sat there hunched, staring blankly at the wall.

And that was the real difficulty with cocaine withdrawal. Without that elevated high, normal levels of pleasure felt like depression, and neutral levels felt like rock bottom. Emily took a wipe herself and ran it over his shoulder and back, biting her lip when she moved to his chest. She didn't have to clean people herself all that often, but when she did it was teenage girls. She was a mother taking care of her kids, but this time she did not feel like a mother.

She opted not to help him with his legs. "Finish getting undressed, I'll get your clothes."

Emily walked across the small room to his bag and pulled out fresh sweatpants, a t-shirt and underwear. She would have pegged him as a boxer-briefs man, and she wouldn't have been wrong.

When she turned back to the bed, Derek was still looking morose, but now sitting in his full glory, and Emily had to work to keep her eyes on his face. She tried to hand him his clothes, but he made no move to take them. Emily sat beside him, and put a hand on his arm. He turned to her then, his eyes empty of everything but misery.

Then he lifted his arms up and pulled her to him in one quick move. She tensed in his arms, but didn't try to pull away. He wasn't being threatening or sexual, he was just using her as a life size teddy bear. Derek angled his head downward, so his face was in her shoulder and sighed. With some hesitation Emily put her arms around him, running one hand over his head.

She gasped when he pulled them back flat on the bed, and curled his body around hers. Emily could feel his penis pressed against her hip, but it wasn't hard, and he probably wouldn't have been able to make it so, even if he'd wanted to have sex with her. Still she said, "Derek, we shouldn't…"

He only wrapped himself more tightly around her.

* * *

_I'm sorry it's been a while since I updated, and it's unlikely that there won't be an update next weekend either (TAH is in town and it's my birthday). Thank you again to InMyIvoryTower, who coached me the detox scenes. Next chapter will skip a week, so Morgan will be much better (wish I could spend more time on his detoxing, but I can't) and you can all look forward to the appearance of two more BAU members. Thank you all for reading and reviewing, it's always much appreciated!_


	5. Chapter 5

June 2, 2006

Spencer Reid glanced over his shoulder as the teller counted out the cash to match the chips he'd turned in, ever conscious of the black t-shirted security guards. He just needed to collect his money, and then get the hell out of the casino. He'd pushed it this time, maybe too far, but he also had it timed. He knew precisely when the shift change was, and that he still had 89 seconds until the confusion of that shift change passed and the order to catch the card counter was passed down.

They had to have noticed his winning streak and the amount of money he'd won, and casinos always look for cheaters when large amounts of money are on the line. This casino didn't pay attention to streaks that were less than 8,000 dollars, and his was 8,125 dollars. They may take notice, or they may ignore it.

23 seconds.

He counted down in his head as the teller let the last bill fall on the stack and looked up at him for confirmation of her count. He nodded and tried not to appear nervous. He'd done this so many times he had the nonchalance perfected, but today some nagging feeling just ate at him.

Something wasn't right.

She slid the stack, now in an envelope into his hand, and wished him a good day. He offered her the same, and walked to the front doors at a quick, but steady pace. Out of the corner of his right eye, he saw two security guards talking, and one was pointing at him. Spencer quickened his pace and made it through the doors. He jumped into the first cab he saw, just as security came through the door.

"Where to?" The driver asked.

"The Amtrak station, please."

The driver offered him a curious look, then shrugged and drove there silently. Reid hailed another cab at the Amtrak station and rode that back to his hotel. It was a dump off the highway, but it was cheap and he really didn't need much. At the hotel he asked the driver to wait, and ran into his room. Spencer counted out money for a tip for the housekeeping lady, grabbed his old duffel and dived back into the cab. He didn't need to check out, the credit card was fraudulent so it wouldn't be traced to him.

He rode in the cab to the Atlantic City bus terminal, and boarded the first bus that would take him out of town up north, the 559 to Lakewood Township, New Jersey. Spencer didn't really care where it took him, so long as he was out of Atlantic City.

The ride was just over two hours, so they got there around midnight, and he checked into another crap motel for a few hours sleep before boarding a bus to New York. It had been too long since he'd seen Emily.

* * *

The phone was ringing and he wanted nothing more than to throw it against a wall. He'd barely slept last night. Jack was sick and crying all night, Haley was giving him the cold shoulder, and the couch was really, really uncomfortable. He reached a hand out to the coffee table just as the baby's shriek pierced the air.

_Goddamnit all to hell_. He found the phone, hit the green button and held it against his ear. "Hotchner."

"Agent Hotchner, this is Elizabeth Prentiss."

Her voice had him lurching up ramrod straight before her words did. He hadn't heard from the Ambassador since he'd handled her security detail several years ago. An assignment on which he blamed all of his marital problems, because it was easier than blaming them on himself. "Yes Ambassador, what can I do for you?"

"I need your help, Agent. My granddaughter was doing some research this month for a professor, but she was supposed to be home for the summer two days ago. She hasn't shown up or called, and the locals in Hartford are completely incompetent."

He ran and hand over his face, trying to wake up. "Daniella has gone missing?"

"Yes, she isn't answering her phone. I can't find her, and I'm worried sick." She sounded beside herself, her voice struggling to contain all the emotion she was holding back.

"I'm-I'm not sure how much I can do, Ambassador. My unit has to be invited in, and the cases have to pass through channels—"

"I don't need excuses, Agent. I need my granddaughter back."

He sighed. "This isn't about excuses, it just isn't up to me."

She went silent. "I can pull whatever strings need pulling, Agent. You handled my security, you know all the people in Danni's life, I need you on this case. Please."

"Pull your strings, Ambassador. I'll speak with my superiors and see if we can't find a way to get involved, or at least offer assistance to Hartford."

"Thank you." He hung up tiredly, just as the crying got louder, and a pissed-off Haley marched downstairs.

"Your phone work him up," she said.

"I'm sorry, I have to keep it on for work. I have a new case, will you be alright without me?"

She snorted. "I am every other day, so why should today be any different?"

He hung his head, and thought about pointing out the obvious, that someone had to work. He decided against it, and instead, swallowed his pride. "I'm sorry, I'll try to come home on time."

Haley rolled her eyes. "You have a new case, we both know that isn't going to happen."

He deflated slightly. She was right. More importantly, he needed to be completely honest about the case to preserve his marriage and whatever fine strings it was hanging on. "Haley, the case…Ambassador Prentiss's granddaughter has gone missing." He hurried on before she could speak. "It's possible I won't even need to have contact with her during the case, I just don't want you to worry. Nothing is going to happen."

"Won't have to have contact, Aaron? She's the girl's mother, of course you'll have to talk to her." Her eyes were filled with both fury and pain, and he hated himself for both.

"But, she hasn't been in Danni's life for almost fifteen years. It's unlikely she'll be of any use, so any interaction with her, will be brief."

Haley nodded slowly, holding back tears. "You find that girl, Aaron. You find that girl, and you never talk to Emily Prentiss again. And, I swear, if anything happens between you and her, so help me, Aaron, I will walk out, to hell with this marriage. Do you understand?"

"Yes, and I promise Haley, nothing will happen."

She spoke as she turned back toward the stairs. "Promises are empty once you've broken your wedding vows."

Hotch blew air out of his mouth and let his face fall into his hands. Fourteen years ago he made the mistake that led him to so many others, and Haley still couldn't forgive him.

* * *

JJ saw Cooper's car when she got to the scene, yawning and drinking down a gulp of the coffee she'd grabbed on the way there. If she was working at 2:00 am, than she was damn well doing it with coffee in her system. Especially since today, working meant seeing some poor girl's mangled corpse. She finally stepped out of her vehicle, and walked toward Cooper. He was already out, his notebook in his hands, and was walking toward the uniforms on the scene.

She touched his shoulder when she caught up. "You said this looked like our guy."

Cooper stepped aside so she could see the body. JJ's eyes landed on the pale, bloodied figure, her face swollen purple and blue, and she released a long sigh. "He's getting more violent."

"Yeah, there's more stab wounds too." He pointed to the girl's chest and abdomen, and then gestured to her arms. "She tried to defend herself."

"Tough kid." JJ studied the young woman. She didn't appear to be more than 21, her dark hair straight to her shoulders, her big eyes made larger by make-up, though one was now swollen. He'd stabbed her until she was too weak to fight and then he'd beaten her.

A uniformed officer approached Cooper and shook his head, showing empty hands. Cooper cursed. "Damn. They can't find her purse, the killer must have taken it."

"No ID," she finished. Cooper nodded. She sighed. "Well, we both know where to find our best chance of getting one."

He didn't comment on that, just continued staring at the body. Though JJ had no doubts that he loved his wife, she still wondered at his relationship with the club owner and surrogate mother to the girls and young women the rest of society had thrown away. She didn't believe that Emily Berne would sleep with a married man, especially Cooper, but there was a closeness and trust between them that wasn't explained by anything either had said last night.

"This isn't exactly party clothing that she's wearing. Right?" Cooper looked at her.

"Well, jeans could be, but the converse and t-shirt suggest otherwise. She dressed to be comfortable, not to attract attention." JJ frowned. "You think maybe she just left work?"

"Maybe." He turned to the ME. "Gary, do you see that under her fingernails?"

The ME grabbed her hand and examined the nails. There was a bright blue substance under her nails. He turned her hand over, squinted and then looked up at them. "I'm not sure. It could be play dough, maybe? I'll scraped it out when I get her back to the office."

"Thanks, Doc," he said, as they watched the doctor slide paper bags on the girls hands and wrap tape around her wrists.

"We should talk to Emily," JJ said. Cooper didn't respond, so she prodded him. "Cooper?"

He sighed and looked at her. "I don't want her to know this kid. I don't want to bring any more pictures of dead girls to her doorstep."

* * *

_So, no Emily in this chapter, but you did get to see Reid and Hotch and more context will be provided on their lives later in the story. And I know, Hotch seems like the last guy on Earth that would cheat on his wife, but people do stupid stuff. Anyway, thank you all for reading and reviewing if you chose to do so. And thank you everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I'm sorry that I didn't really get around to responding, but I do very much appreciate it!_


	6. Chapter 6

_So, I've had a busy weekend and I'm kind of exhausted, so editing on this may not be great. I will be out of town yet again next week, so likely no update. Thank you for reading and for those who do reviewing!_

* * *

June 3rd

Emily shook Dave's arm to try and wake him up again. She should really just let him sleep at the club and start charging him rent. The man practically lived at Firefly. He'd stop getting domination services a couple years ago (which he was never really serious about anyway, as Emily had learned quickly, he wanted company more than anything else, and a safe place to drown himself), and now pretty much just hung out and got drunk. The girls didn't mind, since he always treated them well and was a good tipper, and Emily let him do it, because they had become friends and she knew his pain all too well.

"Dave, come on. Becca is going to give you a ride home, okay?" He'd pass out, sober up and be here again by ten. Emily was worried about what would happen to him when his book money ran out, but so far that hadn't happened.

"Hello Emily," he said, pulling himself up.

"You need to stop drinking so much, Dave."

"Why?"

"Because it hurts the girls and I to see you drowning yourself in a bottle." She held his arm and helped him to stand.

He smiled. "You girls are too good to me."

"Then be good back, get some help." She pled, even knowing that it was futile.

"Emily." She turned to find Wendy nearby, her mouth in a serious line.

Emily sighed. "I have to go. Don't give Becca a hard time." She passed him to her young employee and walked over to Wendy. "What's going on?"

"Cooper and the new detective are here. They said they found another girl murdered."

She gave Wendy's hand a squeeze and headed for her office, where she knew the detectives would be waiting.

She found Cooper sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk, while JJ was standing near the desk, a picture frame in her hands. Emily stiffened at the sight, and let her aura of maternal warmth be replaced by cold, hard steel. "Wendy said you found another victim?"

JJ quickly set the picture back down, and sat in the other free chair. Emily slid behind her desk, offering the photo of Danni only a brief glance before focusing on the cops.

"Yeah, we brought a picture in case you could ID her." JJ went to hand it to her, but Cooper put a hand on top of his new partner's stopping her.

"Em, he beat the hell out of this girl, you need to know that and prepare yourself before you see the photo," he said.

She nodded and held her hand out for the picture. It wasn't one of her girls, she'd made sure they were all accounted for at curfew.

It took her mind a minute to make sense of the bruising and swelling distorting the girl's face, and then her stomach turned over. "Oh god."

"Do you know her?" JJ asked. Cooper shot her a look.

Emily's eyes burned, but she swallowed down her emotions. "Uh yes. She used to live here, and still works here. Um, her name is Casey. Casey Freeman." She bit her lip. "I didn't think to check on the girls coming and going…I should have."

"This isn't your fault, you couldn't have stopped this from happening." Cooper rested his hand on top of hers. She pulled it away.

"Is that all you need?" She asked.

"Who's her next-of-kin?" JJ said, notepad at the ready.

"Me, I guess. Her father died when she was a kid, and she hasn't spoken to her mother since she left home six years ago."

JJ frowned. "How old was she?"

"Twenty-one in two months." She traced the picture, her fingers grazing the ugly bruising of the young woman's face. Casey worked upstairs in the daycare, and had had a late shift yesterday.

"What time did she leave work?" Cooper asked, leaning back, resigned to letting her play it tough.

"Midnight, I think. But, I could get Amy, she'd know." She went to pick up her phone, but Cooper's hand on hers stopped her.

"I think we've got everything we need," he said, looking at his partner. She opened her mouth like she wanted to object, but let whatever it was that she wanted to say go.

With a few words of condolence, Cooper and JJ walked out of the office, leaving Emily alone with her thoughts. She didn't stay in her office, but went to the door that led to her apartment and went up the stairs. She slipped into her bedroom, and closed the door, before sinking onto the mattress. Only sitting there alone, did she let the tears pushing at her eyes and throat break free.

Another one of her girls was dead, and Emily was afraid that she couldn't keep them safe. She hadn't worried about that in years, since she'd first started the place, and now she'd failed two of her girls and was terrified that she'd fail more. Emily wrapped her arms around herself and let the tears fall from her eyes. Casey was dead.

Casey had shown-up when she was seventeen, sporting a black-eye from a violent john. She'd been prostituting herself since she was fifteen, and held little hope that Emily could help her. She'd tried a few drugs, but hadn't been fond of any, except maybe alcohol, but not enough to have an addiction. At least not yet. Eventually, she'd grown to trust Emily. And even though she'd moved out two years ago, she always came home for the holidays. Casey had greeted her yesterday calling her mama and smiling.

The door suddenly opened. Emily wiped fiercely at her eyes. "Sorry Derek, I forgot you were staying in here."

"It's okay, it's your room. I was walking around the apartment, can't sleep." He pointed behind himself.

She'd moved him to the master suite only a couple days ago, after deciding that he wouldn't need to be confined to the room any longer. He was still having a rough time, but she made sure that he kept busy with handyman projects. He struggles were mostly anxiousness and trouble sleeping from the cravings and lingering depression that often found him lying in bed, reluctant to face the world, but he was better than he had been.

Emily got up from the bed, and then stopped as he came toward her. "Are you okay?" He asked.

She nodded. "Fine, I just..." Her voice cracked and she looked away.

He touched her elbow, and after a minute, he pulled her against his chest. His gentle touch made it harder to keep the emotion down, and she found herself resting her head on his shoulder.

* * *

"Just got an ID on victim number 4, someone recognized her from the sketch we released to the media." JJ walked up to her partner, stack of paper in her hand.

"She had a record?" Cooper asked, looking up from his desk.

"Oh yeah," JJ said, handing it to him. "Miri Post, 18 years-old. Looks like she ran away from home four years ago, and there began her life of crime."

Cooper nodded. "Shoplifting, possession, solicitation, theft, and even an arrest for simple assault. Damn."

"That was against a John. He hit first, she defended, and he came out worse. The notes say that they barely managed to talk him out of pressing charges. She only served time for the theft." JJ pointed toward the notation on the list of offenses.

"Did you call Emily and ask about her?"

"Yeah, she didn't recognize the name." Cooper nodded. Before he could saying anything else JJ held up a hand. "That still leaves us with two Haven girls, and two dumped very close to Haven. There's a connection there, Cooper."

"I hear you, but I still think that's thin. Haven is filled with girls who fit our victimology, it would be an ideal hunting ground for this killer."

JJ thought that over, while coming to half-sit on his desk. He had a point, the killer could just be killing Haven girls and dumping bodies in that area because it gives him access to a lot of his preferred victims. Something told her that it wasn't that simple though, that there was more to the killer's targeting Alphabet City than just convenience. She pushed herself off of Cooper's desk, and paced for several beats, her ponytail swinging behind her head. She decided to try another approach.

"Okay, let's answer this then, why these girls?" She stood in front of Cooper. "These girls are throw-aways. No one but Emily gives a shit about them. Jenny Banks' mother told you her daughter was already dead, Hanna Lee's father hung up on you, and we don't even have a next of kin for Miri Post. The only person who's been upset by these deaths is Emily."

"You're assuming he's killing these girls in order to hurt someone."

She nodded. "Okay, say he's not. The question is still the same, no one cares about these kids, so why does he?"

"Alright, well we already said that it couldn't just be because they're easy targets. Maybe, it's just that they're the easiest targets in his comfort zone."

"His comfort zone being Alphabet City."

"Yeah." His face held relief in it, like he was happy just to have been able to bullshit a theory from that.

JJ began to pace again, glancing at the white boards, and trying to puzzle the whole thing together. Five dead girls, nearly all of whom should have been safe in high school, but instead were walking the streets of Manhattan late at night. Granted, the city was far safer now than it had been in the 70s, 80s, or even 90s, but that didn't mean it was safe for teenagers to be wandering around by themselves.

Cooper grimaced. "The only sexual component to these is the stabbing. There's no rape, and he doesn't play with the bodies."

"What does that mean?"

"That means, it's doubtful that he's doing it for sexual gratification."

"Which lends credence to my theory, right?"

"What theory?" He scoffed. "You don't have a theory, Jareau. You have a hunch."


	7. Chapter 7

Emily shifted under the covers, not quite awake, but yet, not still asleep. Her sleepy brain noted the slight pressure from the body tangled with hers, and dragged her away from her rest. She opened her eyes, adjusting to the light, and stared around her bedroom. And she was in her own bedroom.

Oh crap.

She knew already that she was clothed. In fact, she knew that when she glanced at her clothes, she'd still be wearing her outfit from yesterday. Emily had let the handsome and kind, junkie football player comfort her last night. Casey was dead. Another one of her girls was dead, and it left an empty little ache in her chest. And, she'd spent the night cuddling with some poor bastard who was trying to get off of cocaine. She shouldn't have let it happen, but she couldn't deny that she'd liked the feeling of his arms around her. Though she wasn't certain it that was due to this particular set of arms, or just that it had been so long since she'd let a man hold her like that.

Sex was fine, but comfort was dangerous.

Derek tightened his arm around her, and nuzzled his face into her neck. His even breathing told her that he was still asleep. She bit her lip, and tried to figure out a way to extricate herself without waking him up. Sure, disappearing while he was still asleep might be rude, but it would table the conversation they definitely needed to have until she'd at least gotten some coffee. If she was lucky they could table the conversation until he was detoxed and gone.

"I can hear you thinking." Emily jumped at his voice. He made a noise reminiscent of a groan. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

She set about pulling herself out of his arms and her bed. Derek let her go without a fight, and she tried not to frown at that. The man had probably had countless women in his life, surely cuddling with her was nothing special to him. And it shouldn't be to her, but it was.

"Are you at least going to say good morning?" He asked.

She turned and offered him a smile that didn't meet her eyes. "Good Morning, Derek. How are your cravings today?"

"Same as yesterday, but better than a week ago." He smiled and it was the most painfully honest thing in the world.

"That's good…" She ran her tongue along her top lip, unsure of what else to say. "Um, thank you for being there for me last night."

He nodded. "Least I can do."

She pointed toward the door. "I have to shower and get dressed."

"You run a night club, you're day starts at," he turned toward the clock on the nightstand, "8:00?"

"It does today. Nikki's adoption consultation is today, and I may have to shut my clubs down."

"Shutdown? Why, what's going on?"

"Two of my girls have been murdered, and another three girls were murdered nearby here. I can't risk them coming to work." But she couldn't really afford to shutdown either.

"I'm so sorry, Emily," he said. Those soft brown eyes of his were so full of sympathy that she had to look away.

She nodded. "I'll uh, check on you this afternoon."

Then Emily rushed into the living room, where she'd stashed a duffle of clothing while her bedroom was in use. She pulled out clothing, and then locked herself in the bathroom. She ran her hands roughly over her face, silently asking herself what the hell she was doing, jeopardizing Derek's recovery to get a little comfort. He needed to get through the next couple days of detox and then he had to leave. And Emily had to deal with the psycho slaughtering young women in her neighborhood.

None of that stopped her from detecting his scent on her shirt as she pulled it over her head. And none of it stopped the smile that formed on her face.

Emily balled up the shirt and threw it in a corner.

* * *

Spencer stretched his arms and legs, working out the stiffness that had settled in during the two hour, nine minute, and 37 second bus ride. He'd never been overly fond of buses, far preferring trains, but bus rides were often harder to trace. He followed the other passengers off the bus in a slow shuffle, and finally made it to the sweltering garage portion of the Port Authority bus terminal. The shuffle continued into the actual terminal when people finally broke off in different directions, and he got a little breathing room.

He glanced around to orient himself to this portion of the terminal, and quickly determined that he was on the second floor. He aimed himself toward the little deli that was by the escalators to the third floor, and marched forward. He at least needed coffee. And maybe a breakfast sandwich. If he remembered the place correctly, it had really good and surprisingly cheap breakfast sandwiches. At least for Manhattan. Now that everything was cleaned up, the city could hardly pass for affordable.

As he approached the deli, he saw a line had formed, and he stood behind the last person. She was pretty and looked to be college-age with dark hair and eyes. The girl wore a backpack on her shoulders, and carried a tote bag on her left arm. The way she bit at her nails and glanced around herself would have been enough to tell Reid that she wasn't a local, even if he hadn't seen the NYC map tucked into the mesh pocket on the back of her bag. He was instantly curious about the girl, who clearly wasn't a tourist.

Tourists were not that nervous.

That meant she was in the city for a purpose. If she'd been meeting a friend or family, she wouldn't be getting breakfast alone, but then what brought her to the city?

"Can I have a large coffee with two Splendas, and uh…"

Reid leaned toward her shoulder, and said, "Go with a breakfast sandwich. They're very good here."

The girl started, but then smiled. "Uh, I'll have bacon, egg, and cheese on a muffin."

She paid and stepped aside with her coffee. Reid ordered his sandwich with sausage, and his coffee black, and then stepped beside her. "There are better pastries and bagels in other parts of the city that you should try if you want to know real New York food."

"Do you uh, live here?" She asked.

"No, but I've spent a lot of time here visiting. I have some friends in Alphabet City. What brings you in?" He hoped it sounded casual.

"Uh, the same actually." The way her eyes darted away was an instant give away that she was lying. Spencer was instantly concerned for this girl, who seemed like she was in something deeper than she realized.

Suddenly food was thrust out in their direction, one wrapped sandwich in each hand, and a thickly accented voice shook the right and then the left hand and said, "Bacon, sausage."

They took their respective sandwiches and both started to move. He didn't want to lose her, so trying not to sound pushy, he said, "Uh, there isn't anywhere to eat these here, but I do know a park nearby. I can take you there."

"Um…" Her eyes darted around again, like she was waiting for someone to attack.

"It's very public. The whole walk there is very public as well." He paused. "Actually, the city is much safer now than it used to be, but you're smart to be cautious with a man you don't know. About 10% of women – "

"Whoa," she said, holding up the hand with her sandwich. "You already sold me, I'll walk with you. I'm on break from school though, so no statistics."

He smiled and ducked his head. "Sorry."

"So, where's this park?" She asked, as he led her down the escalator, and out the entrance along 8th Avenue.

"It's two avenue blocks east."

She frowned. "Is it Central Park?"

Spencer smiled again. "Uh no, that's uptown. We're going to Bryant Park, it's much smaller, but it's a nice park." He then balanced his sandwich on his coffee up, and held out his free hand. "I'm Spencer, by the way."

She performed the same maneuver. "Danni."

* * *

Hotch knocked on the door to Mother Night, and hoped that someone would be around to answer it. He'd never been to Emily's club, though he'd known of its existence for years. Even after they'd broken up, he'd kept tabs on her. It wasn't hard, she hadn't changed her name since switching it from Prentiss to Berne upon coming to New York. Their relationship, if you could call it that, had ended before she'd opened the place. It had ended before her previous career had even ended, when she'd refused to see him anymore, refusing to be a mistress. He hadn't realized how ridiculous he was back then, falling in love with a hooker, but he did now.

But Emily hadn't been a hooker to him, not when they made love and not when she inevitably left him in an expensive hotel room wanting more. She was just one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, and the only woman that ever made him turn away from Haley. Part of him hated her for that, for having such power over him.

"Yes?" A young woman answered the door, unsurprising from what Hotch had heard about the place. She had short dark curls that hung a few inches below her ears and suspicious hazel eyes.

"I'm here to speak with Emily Berne." He held up his Bureau ID.

"She's not here, Agent Hotchner. She should be back soon though, if you'd like to wait inside."

"I would appreciate that," he said. "And you are?"

"Wendy. I manage Mother Night for Emily." She held out a hand, and Hotch was surprised at the firm shake.

She allowed him inside, and he quickly decided that an empty club during daylight hours was an eerie sight to see. Wendy gestured him to the bar, and went to join two other young women at a table. One was African American, and carried visible scars on her upper arm that looked like cigarette burns. The other was Asian American with a short, almost tom-boyish cut. They were talking, but seemed to be mostly passing numbers back and forth.

Hotch sat patiently, and tried not to eavesdrop. He did hear them mention something about having extra money and a football player, and shutting down, which surprised and concerned him. But chose to tune them out. He wasn't there to investigate the club, and he had no desire to get involved in an investigation that would keep him near Emily. Hotch pulled out his wallet, and flipped to the picture of Haley and Jack, letting his thumb trace their faces. Emily was the mistake that almost cost him his family, and her hated her for that, even though he knew she wasn't at fault. At least not nearly as much as he was. The door opened, and Hotch quickly tucked the photo back inside before turning toward the sound.

It was Emily. A young, though very pregnant, African American girl was beside her, her head down, and one hand on her belly. Emily had her purse over her shoulder, a folder of papers half sticking out, and a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Go upstairs and put your feet up, Nik. You don't have to decide anything now, okay?"

The girl looked up at her and nodded her head, but Hotch could see, even from the distance he was at, that her eyes were glassy. Emily hugged the girl tightly to her chest, and then sent her "upstairs" with a hand gesture.

Emily turned toward the table of young women, but abruptly turned back to him. "Hotch?"

"Emily," he said. She was just as beautiful as he remembered, and he hated himself for noticing.

Her postured stiffened and she turned to toward the table of girls. "Could you guys give me the room for a bit?"

Exchanging wary glances among themselves, and casting distrusting looks at him, the girls hurried out of the room. Emily crossed her arms over her chest then. "What do you want?"

"I didn't come here for personal reasons, Emily."

"We never had personal business, Hotch, and we don't have a business relationship anymore, so why are you here?"

"You're mother called me yesterday morning," he paused. "You might want to sit down."

Her body seemed to curl with tension, down to her fingers squeezing her forearms like a vice. "What happened to Danni?"

"She's missing."

"What the hell do you mean missing? Missing from where? When was the last time anyone saw her?" She dropped her arms and stormed a few steps closer to him, her hands curled in fists. This was the woman he remembered, the woman who's sole weak spot was the little girl she'd given birth to and raised for five years.

"I guess you haven't seen her then?"

"No, Hotch. I haven't seen my daughter since the day my mother called me a whore and stole her."

Yes, this woman he remembered well. The woman who had told him to fuck off when he'd come calling the first time 13 years ago, when he was working security for her mother. Her hatred for her mother was as deep as her love for her daughter.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to bring up painful subjects, I just had to know if you'd seen her."

"I haven't."

He nodded and turned to leave. "I'll let you know when we find her."

"What? Are you kidding, Hotch? Tell me what happened to my daughter!"

"I can't divulge information in an ongoing investigation, I'm sorry."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Hotch. She's my child, I have a right to know."

His voice remained steady as he spoke. "You haven't been her mother in 14 years, Emily. You're rights were terminated years ago."

"That wasn't my choice, and you know it!" Her dark eyes were flashing with anger, like sparks in a volcano before it erupts.

"I'm sorry, Emily, but I can't share that information with you."

Her jaw tensed, and her tongue flicked over her lip as she looked away from him. When she looked back, her jaw was just as tense, but her posture was a bit more relaxed. "If you tell me what happened to Danni, I'll give you a freebie."

Hotch stood and stared at her for a moment, amazed that even after so many years, she was still willing to do anything for that girl. It took all his willpower and images of Haley and Jack floating across his mind for him to shake his head at her offer.

Even so, he surrendered in other ways. Something about Emily Prentiss made it difficult for him to say no. "She was supposed to be home two days ago, but she never showed. The locals in Hartford don't know much, and aren't inclined to investigate, so you're mother called in several favors. There are agents poking around Yale as we speak."

Emily's jaw finally relaxed. "Thank you."

He nodded and hurried out, before he gave into any other impulses.

* * *

_Don't hate me for the whole Emily prostitute thing, her running away to have her baby and becoming a prostitute was actually the idea that set the ball rolling for this story. And good news, next week you get to meet our last team member and I'm excited, because I had fun, as I usually do, writing her. Thank you for reading and for those who do, reviewing!_


	8. Chapter 8

Derek watched Emily pace around the little kitchenette behind Mother Night, gnawing her nails down to nubs. Her boots clacked on the floor, loud as hell in the small, silent room. Every time he saw her, she was wearing the same type of clothing: black boots, dark pants, professional, yet sexy top, usually in dark colors. It always contrasted with her light skin in a way that was very attention-getting, yet very beautiful. Looking at her, he'd almost believe that she'd become part of the night that had become her business hours. The mystery of nighttime glowed on her skin, and seemed to swirl in her dark eyes.

"I have to go," she said, coming to a dead stop in the middle of the room.

"Where?"

"To see someone." She offered very little information to him, always weary, always mindful of her carefully guarded secrets.

Derek knew that she wanted to close down Mother Night and Firefly. He knew that she probably didn't have the financial means to shutdown indefinitely until the killer was caught. He knew that an FBI agent had showed up earlier, and caused her a lot of upset, but he didn't know why. No one did, not even Wendy, the young woman who was Emily's right-hand.

"I'll go with you," he said.

"No."

"You're clearly upset, you shouldn't be driving anywhere alone."

"I'm not going to be driving there," she said, already marching out of the kitchenette.

"I can keep a secret, Emily. I promise." She remained silent. "And I need to get out of this place, before I go stir crazy. And wouldn't I be safer doing that with you?"

"Derek…I would take you, but I promised this friend confidentiality. There was a run in with law enforcement a few years ago, and my friend has been practically agoraphobic since then."

"I'm getting off of coke, and to do it I'm staying at an unlicensed home for girls. Clearly, I'm not on the legal up and up."

Coke, god he wanted a hit. The withdrawal symptoms weren't that bad now that the earliest stages had passed, but the cravings were like a constant burning in his veins and crawling on his skin.

Emily crossed her arms over her chest. "The difference, Derek, is that my friend is already on the shopping list for the FBI, NSA, DOD, and I would even bet the CIA. You aren't, unless you've neglected to tell me something."

He raised his eyebrows. "No, I don't think I'm that important, but now I am a little worried."

"I'll be fine, I swear. And I don't really want you going out, you're not exactly inconspicuous and I don't want people knowing you're here. If this place makes the news, DHS will have to shut it down."

He tried not to look completely crestfallen, but he really needed to get out and honestly, he didn't want her going alone. He'd come to care a great deal for his benefactor. They still hadn't discussed last night's sleeping arrangements, and god knows, he'd have been happy to repeat that tonight.

Derek nodded, eyes pointed toward the floor. After a minute he looked up at her. "Just be safe, okay?"

"I will, I promise." She gave his bicep a squeeze, and then disappeared down the hall.

He shook his head, and then headed to the game room that sat across the hallway from the kitchen, down past Emily's office. The door was already opened, and a handful of girls were inside, a few around the air hockey table and some around the TV and Playstation console.

"Excuse me, ladies." He nodded to them, and gestured toward the door in the back of the room.

"Hey, Derek," Nikki said. She was sitting on chair, observing the video game, a hand on her belly. She was the only one that Derek had had much contact with, since they were both staying in Emily's little apartment.

"Hey kid, how are you feeling?"

She shrugged. "You going to work out, again?"

He smiled. "This figure don't keep itself."

Nikki smiled and a couple of the girls chuckled, but otherwise paid him little attention. Emily had told him that most weren't thrilled with him being here, since few had had successful or even positive relationships with the men in their lives. It hurt that they inherently expected similar behavior from him, but he respected their experiences and kept his distance.

Except for when he wanted to work out, and had to walk through the game room to get to the closet-sized gym. It literally fit a treadmill, some weights and a little room to stretch. He'd have killed for a heavy bag, or even a much smaller striking bag.

Lacking those, he walked past the young ladies who all tensed in his presence, shut the door to the tiny room, and hopped right on the treadmill. The weights were too light for him to get much of a workout, but he could abuse his body properly on the treadmill. He could exhaust himself out of the energy to go out and find cocaine. And today, the energy to worry about Emily.

Derek set a variable incline, cranked up the speed and began to run.

* * *

Spencer led the way off the W train into the Whitehall Street station. They were at the far southern tip of Manhattan after stopping at his hotel to drop their things off, and then catching the Broadway line train downtown. Danni didn't have a hotel in the city, and had been mum about who she was in town to see. She was still cautious around him, but seemed reluctant to be on her way. He'd offered to take her to do some touristy things.

Even Yale students had limited funds though, so they opted for free touristy things. The first thing he thought of was the Staten Island Ferry, which was one of his favorite New York activities. It was peaceful almost, gave him time to think.

"The ferry is really free?" Danni asked, one hand squeezing his arm so they didn't get separated in the throng of people.

"It is, since July 4, 1997. The same day they instituted free transfers between buses and subways." He had every fact about the ferry, and many other places in the city stored in his brain. "Actually, the ferries used to be run by private companies, as far back as the 1700s, until they were all bought by a railroad company and consolidated in 1884. Three of the ferries were actually requisitioned by the Union during the Civil War, though those never made it back. And actually two other ferries were, until very recently, used to house prison inmates at Riker's Island jail. And…" He stopped when he saw Danni looking at him with wide eyes.

"How do you remember all that?"

"Eidetic memory."

That seemed to be explanation enough, and she continued to follow him away from the trains up into the South Ferry terminal. He took her up the escalator to the terminal with it's little shops and take-out joints, and through the dividers which used to be turnstiles, when they charged 50 cents for a ride. When they got out onto the deck, Danni's mouth fell open.

They had a view of the harbor with a variety of boats coming and going. One of the orange and blue Staten Island Ferry boats was headed in their direction, and as Spencer studied it, he almost told Danni that it was a Kennedy class ferry, but stopped himself.

"That's ours?" She pointed to the ferry.

"Yes, that will take us to St. George's ferry terminal in Staten Island. It's not as showy as the South Ferry terminal, but there is a library nearby and the beach is a bus ride away."

"A beach? New York has beaches?"

Spencer smiled. "Oh yeah, the most well known are Brighton Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn, but Staten Island has beaches too."

Her face twisted up. "It's safe to swim there?"

"Yes, it is. They weren't always very clean, but a lot of things in the city have improved since the 90s."

The ferry made it's crawl into port, the large boat gently coming to fit at the terminal, and then the crew anchored it and opened the doors, allowing a couple hundred people to come pouring out.

"I've never seen so many people in a city, except when I went to visit my grandmother in Moscow."

"You're grandmother is Russian?"

"Huh?" She turned to him. "Oh no, she was just there for business while I was on a school break."

Spencer led her onto the boat, and took her to stand against the railing along the outside. She appeared so lost in thought that he was surprised when she finally spoke. "She raised me, my grandmother."

"Oh?" He resisted the urge to ask questions.

"Yeah. I never knew my dad, and my mom…she dropped me off with my grandmother when I was little and I never heard from her again."

"I'm sorry."

Danni shrugged. "Whatever, I guess she just decided that she didn't want a kid."

Spencer smiled. "Her loss then."

But she was still lost in her head. "I was born here, you know."

"In New York?" Now, he was definitely interested, but he wasn't even sure that Danni heard him.

"Yeah, in Manhattan. My mother, she still lives here." The ferry pulled out then, startling Danni, who nearly lost her footing. That seemed to wake her out of her trance.

"You're here to find your mother," he said.

"Just to ask her why she left, why she abandoned me. Then she can go and rot in hell for all I care."

He winced at the venom in the girl's words, and realized this hurt, angry girl was hiding underneath the sweet, innocent girl he'd met, and probably had been for most of her life.

"You know where she is?" He asked.

"Not exactly." She looked away. "I found something in my grandmother's papers while I was at our house in DC for spring break. It was an envelope from a private investigator. It was from several years ago, but it had my mother's name and an address for a club she owns or runs or something."

"If you have the address, I can take you there." He wasn't keen on getting involved, but he didn't want Danni wandering around a city she didn't know looking for a club that probably didn't exist anymore. In New York, businesses came and went with the seasons, few managing to dig their claws in and hang around for more than a year.

"I didn't get to copy it down, but I remember the name. Maybe you've been, do you go to clubs, Spencer?"

He shook his head. "Not really, no. But, I have a library card, we can go when we get to Staten Island and see if we can find mention of it in their online newspaper archives. What's the name?"

"It's kind of weird, Mother Night. Have your heard of it?"

* * *

Emily was still reeling. Danni was missing. She had disappeared from college like hundreds of girls in the last forty years, and Emily knew a lot of those girls never made it home. Criminal behavior had always been an interest of hers, and she had made hobby of reading books abut the subject. A hobby that she was regretting now as she imagined a hundred awful things that could be happening to Danni.

And Hotch showing up had thrown her. It had been so long since she'd seen him, and he'd always been so gentle, so gentlemanly, so passionate, that she'd conned herself into believing that she was more than a hooker to him. Emily hadn't sold her body in years and hadn't thought about Aaron Hotchner in almost as long; she was surprised seeing him had still hurt so much. But if sleeping with him had been what it took to get information on Danni, she'd have done it without a second thought.

She had to find Danni. She needed to know that her baby was safe.

Emily glanced around as she exited the subway car and headed toward the steps that would lead to the street, careful to make sure that she wasn't followed as she made her way to the small apartment in Forest Hills. She head never particularly enjoyed navigating Queens, with it's idiosyncratic street-naming method, but she'd gone to see Penelope enough times over the years to have the path memorized. Mostly, it was getting across Queens Boulevard, not-so-affectionately nicknamed "Death Boulevard" by the borough's residents that was a pain in the ass.

After getting across that, it was just a matter of a half dozen turns to get where she needed to go. It was a decent-sized apartment building, the kind that granted anonymity, and she knew that was why Penelope had picked it. She also knew that Penelope didn't mind Queens Boulevard, because she hadn't left her apartment in the almost decade that she'd lived there. Emily had begged and cajoled her several times, but getting within a hair's breath of being arrested by the FBI had traumatized the hell out of the hacker.

Now she kept as low a profile as she could manage.

She slipped into the building as one of the residents left, and took the elevator, which was so old it had one of those gates she had to pull closed, up to the fifth floor. When she got to she got to E7, she knocked to the first few beats of Pink Floyd's _Brain Damage_. After three silent beats, she knocked again, this time to the beat of Pavement's _Cut Your Hair_. She was given new songs on a biyearly basis, and though the memorization was annoying, she tried to tolerate her friend's paranoia.

The door opened to reveal Kevin, Penelope's live-in boyfriend, who waved her inside. The two had met at the concert of some obscure local band that had since given up before Penelope's paranoia had blossomed to near agoraphobia. "How are you, Emily?"

"Uh, been better. How about you?"

He shrugged. Emily knew that he adored Penelope, and wanted her to get out of the house as much as she did. It hurt him that the woman he loved kept herself locked inside in terror.

He led her through the apartment, which was taken up mostly by computer equipment and books. It definitely had Penelope's touch though, in the funky colors on the walls, and occasional beaded and scarf curtain. They walked past Kevin's small command center – he had a regular job and therefore didn't need as much equipment as Pen – to her very large set-up. Emily had asked once why they needed separate computer stations, and the earful she'd gotten from Penelope was enough to tell her that for computer geeks this separation was necessary for a harmonious relationship.

"Hi Em!" Penelope squealed happily at seeing her, moving from her computers to wrap her arms around her. "I don't have too much new for you today. Danni has been too busy with school to do much online. She still posts a bit to that Facebook thing I told you about. By the way, that thing has really taken off, right honey?"

Kevin nodded. "Oh yeah, everybody at work is talking about it. There are rumors that the company is going to open it to anyone with an email address soon. But I don't know, I think that kind of diminishes the exclusivity component, which was a big part of the draw."

Before they could launch into a discussion about whatever new internet thing they were discussing, Emily jumped in. "I'm actually not here for an update, Pen. Danni has gone missing."

"What?" She looked as distraught as Emily felt, and it made her feel a bit better that someone was upset as she was.

"Hotch came by and told me. He thought I might have heard from her."

"Whoa, Hotch? The hunky FBI agent that was infatuated with you, that Hotch?"

"Yes, the _married_ hunky FBI agent." She frowned. "Back the to part where my daughter is missing. She was supposed to be at her grandmother's two days ago, but never showed. Can you track her credit cards or something?"

"Yes, of course. I'll get right on it. I'll dig into everything I can, Em. If she's left a trace, I'll find it."

Emily hugged her friend. "Thank you, Pen."

A photo caught her eye. It had probably been there forever, but she'd never bothered to notice. She pulled away and gestured to it. "Pen, why do you have a picture of a football player in a frame?"

The hacker turned. "Oh Derek?"

"Yeah, him."

"Oh, Kevin accidentally flipped onto sports one day, and they were interviewing him, he was so delicious I just want to look at him all the time."

"Kevin's okay with that?"

She called to him. "Tell Em who you've got tapped to the inside of your cabinet, honey."

"Buffy," he said, grin on his face.

Emily raised both eyebrows.

"What? Buffy's hot." He looked at Penelope. "Not as hot as you though, Plum Sauce."

* * *

_Thank you all for reading and reviewing, all your kind words are very much appreciated! And just a little FYI, there won't be anything in depth on Garcia's near capture by the Bureau. I just don't have the time to get into without taking away from the major storylines. And for anyone who might be waiting for Will to make an appearance, I had a plotline for him, but had to discard it for similar reasons._


	9. Chapter 9

"We have to talk to her, Cooper."

JJ was leaning on her partner's desk, irritated already from having the same fight for the third time, and Cooper was valiantly trying to ignore her. The bullpen was unnaturally quiet, since half their colleagues were already gone and the other half were trying to ignore the fighting. After they had briefed him, Valenti had gone home to deal with a disciplinary problem with his teenage son. The Lieutenant had been torn, he wasn't convinced that the killer was after Haven, but he thought it might be too much for a coincidence. He left them to decide.

Cooper didn't want to bother his friend. He didn't want to lay all that guilt on Emily. But JJ couldn't shake the feeling that the good Samaritan who served as the patron saint of abused and destitute girls was hiding a lot of secrets. One of those secrets might just be the key to figuring out their killer.

Cooper turned to her, startling her into almost falling off the desk. "I agree that Emily's got secrets, Jareau. But we all have secrets. And I don't think that's reason to go pound on her door and demand answers from her."

She put a hand on her hip. "Cooper, I bet you, no, I guarantee you, that whatever secrets you might have are child's play compared to that woman."

"Well yeah, you get to where she is and you've probably got some dark shit in your past."

"What are you afraid of finding out about her?"

His face folded into a deep scowl. "I'm not afraid of finding out anything. I know a lot more about her past than you do, and that's why I know she's not hiding anything related to this case."

"Then tell me, Cooper. Convince me."

"You thought she was a pimp at first sight, and now you want me to trust her secrets to you?"

"Really, and what did you think of her at first sight?"

"That she was hot," a voice called from across the room.

Dale Turvey, a detective in their unit hadn't even looked up from his desk when he spoke, and didn't bother to apologize for eavesdropping. Did the entire freaking NYPD know Emily Berne?

Cooper cocked his head. "He's not wrong."

"Seriously?"

Turvey spoke again. "Men are simple creatures, Jareau."

"No, men like to pretend they're simple creatures because it's easy. But they're just as complex as women."

The two men exchanged a look and a shrug. JJ sighed at a volume that she knew would let them know she was irritated, and then grabbed her black blazer from the back of her chair. "If we aren't going to pursue any productive leads tonight, then I'm going home. You should too, Cooper. Go hug your kid and give your wife a foot rub."

"See you tomorrow, JJ."

She nodded and marched out of the bullpen and Manhattan South Homicide. She didn't get on the train that would take her back to her apartment in Brooklyn though, but one that would take her north to Alphabet City. Cooper was far too close to Emily Berne to feel comfortable interrogating her, but JJ barely knew the woman. She had no problem going down there and demanding answers, especially if it meant one fewer dead girl.

Emily would understand that.

* * *

"You're friends with her!"

Spencer shrunk away from his new friend's furious tone. Danni's eyes were flashing and her body was so tight, he feared she might actually pop from the tension. She had not taken the news well.

They were now on the ferry back to Manhattan, since clearly, they were not going to need to look up Emily's information. And Danni was far too upset with him to want to spend anytime sightseeing on Staten Island. As it was, he was just trying to keep from disturbing the people in their area of the deck.

"I'm in town to visit her," he said. He knew it would only piss her off more, but she deserved to know to whom his loyalties belonged.

"Are you sleeping with her?"

"What? Of course not!" Why on Earth would she think that? He'd never slept with Emily in all their years of friendship. "And I never have," he added, before she could ask.

Danni's face settled into a pout, and she crossed her arms under her breasts. "Why do you like her?"

He didn't expect that. "Uh, well she's a good person."

"A good person? The woman who abandoned me when I was a child, the woman who dropped me off with a woman I'd never met before, and left while I was sleeping, left me there like I was garbage to be tossed away, she's a good person?"

"I don't know who your mother was back then, but the woman I know, she's a good person." When Danni didn't object, he continued. "And she's smart. Uh, we play chess a lot, and Go, and poker. She's the only one that can beat me chess."

"But you're a genius. You said so."

Spencer shrugged. "She's very good at chess."

Danni turned to the ocean, and didn't speak for several minutes. He just let her have the time she needed, and focused on Manhattan, which grew larger and clearer as the ferry boat drew closer. She didn't speak again until they were almost at South Ferry terminal.

"Does she have kids?"

"No," he said. "As far as I know, she never had anymore kids. She's plenty busy with all the girls."

Danni looked at him. "Girls?"

"The floor above the club your mother owns, it's been converted into bedrooms and living space for 23 girls."

"Why?" She seemed to be settling, so he readily began to relay all he knew of Haven.

"The place is always full, and she's always got a waiting list," he ended.

Danni accepted his hand as he led her off the ferry. "Why does she do it?"

Spencer didn't quite know how to answer that; he had asked her that himself once. "She told me once that it was so the girls that stay with her don't have to make the same hard decisions she had to and don't suffer the pain she suffered."

"What hard decisions? What pain?" Danni's voice was thick with disbelief and contempt.

"I didn't ask, I didn't want to pry." He paused. "Do you want me to take you to see her?"

"What? No!" Danni shrunk from her own outburst. "No. I'm not ready to see her yet."

"Then we'll go back to my hotel." Spencer wasn't about to push her, and honestly, he didn't know how Emily would handle a reunion with her daughter.

It did make him wonder. Why _had_ Emily just abandoned the girl?

* * *

Emily was in her office, her eyes fixed on the picture of five year-old Danni. It was taken only weeks before the last day she saw her daughter. She was sitting on one of the painted horses on the carousel in Central Park, her little hands wrapped around the pole. Her brown eyes sparkled and her smile-with two teeth missing-lit up the photo. She ran a finger over the little girl's sweet little face, and sunk her teeth into her bottom lip to hold back the tears.

Danni was missing. She hadn't been seen in days. She never made it back to D.C., and Emily knew far too well the dangers the faced a young woman traveling alone. She knew too well the monsters that lurked in the darkness.

She started at the knocking and her teeth scraped her lip, breaking the skin. "Come in," Emily called while grabbing a tissue.

She held it to her lip, as Wendy poked her head inside. She opened her mouth, but then frowned at Emily's bloody tissue.

"I'm fine, I just bit my lip," she said. "What do you need?"

"Detective Jareau is here to see you." Wendy paused. "Cooper isn't with her."

"It's fine, Wendy. You can let her in."

Wendy nodded and stepped back, allowing JJ to enter the office. The blonde thanked Wendy and closed the door. She sat across from Emily, and eyed her bloody lip. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just bit my lip. What's going on? Where's Cooper?"

"He didn't come with, doesn't even know I'm here."

"Why?" Emily's red flags went up, something was not right with this visit.

"Because, we have to ask you hard questions, and he likes you too much to do that."

"What hard questions do you want to ask me, Detective?"

"What you're hiding for starters."

Emily dabbed at the last bit of blood, threw away the tissue, and leaned back at her desk. "What makes you think I'm hiding something?"

"You changed your name, and no one seems to know who or where that little girl is, including Cooper." JJ tilted her head toward the photo of Danni.

"You're one to talk about hiding things, Detective."

JJ smirked. "You think I'm hiding something?"

"JJ, I've had girls coming and going from here for a decade. You think I don't know that look in your eyes? You don't think I've seen that look in every abused and broken child that's come through here over the years?"

"I wasn't abused as a child." She looked smug, as if she'd won that point.

Emily smiled. "I didn't say you were a child at the time."

The detective looked away, her lips pressed together and eyes on the floor. Her knuckles were slowly beginning to turn white, as she gripped her hands fiercely.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Emily said.

JJ turned back, eyes hard and cold. "Do you know why I came to New York?"

"Escaping."

"Yeah, actually. But not what you think. He's dead."

"Your husband?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I was only 21 when I got married. It wasn't meant to be like that, but I…I completed fucked up my Achilles tendon while I was at college, and I couldn't play anymore, so they took my soccer scholarship. Without the scholarship I couldn't afford to go to school, so I went back to the smallest town in the world. I lived with my parents, got a job as a deputy, and took night classes. He was a deputy too, Brent. We dated and got married young, and bought a little house. That's when it started. He was the greatest guy in town, everyone loved him, but when he was home, I was in Hell. We were together for five years when he got promoted to Sheriff, and it got really bad after that, because he knew he could do anything and I couldn't stop him. One night, he came at me, and I was still wearing my service weapon. I killed him with one shot, but I kept firing until it was empty."

"And the town didn't believe that he was abusive."

JJ scoffed, but her eyes were glassy. "Not even my parents. Though the county attorney did, so I wasn't arrested. But I still became the bitch that killed the best guy in the world. So, I left."

"I'm sorry."

"I hated that damn town anyway."

Emily inhaled and passed JJ the photo of Danni. "That's my daughter. Danni. She was five there, and that was almost 15 years ago."

JJ looked up at her, mouth agape. "Jesus, how old were you when you had her?"

"Almost 16."

JJ glanced back at the photo, but not for long. "What happened to her?"

"Shortly after I took that photo, my mother got custody of her, and I haven't seen her since."

"But how?"

"My mother had lined up people to adopt Danni after she was born, so I ran away days before my due date. I changed my name so she couldn't find me. I had Danni here in New York, but the money I had didn't last long. When you're a 16 year-old mother it's hard to find work."

Something seemed to click for JJ. "You became a prostitute."

The way she said it, it sounded like a transformation, and maybe it was. Once you do that kind of work, you can never really go back to the person you were.

"Yeah. I needed to buy diapers and clothes and food, and keep a roof over our heads. I worked on the streets mostly, until I got a job as a escort. It didn't last long though, because that's hard to do when you have a kid. One week, Danni was sick, really sick and I had to be home with her. But after a few days, I couldn't not work anymore, we needed the money, so I invited some of my regulars to my apartment. I kept Danni in her room, and told her not to come out until I said she could. That worked for the first day, then a regular sent over a friend. He saw Danni coming back from the bathroom." Emily felt her entire jaw grow tight. "He asked me how much. I told him that she wasn't for sale, and he decided he'd just take what we wanted. I fought him off, and threw him out, but that scared the hell out of me."

"I bet."

"I realized that I couldn't protect her in the life we were leading, so I decided to go home. I packed our bags and went to my mother's house. Everything was fine until I told her what I'd been doing for money. Then she told me that I couldn't stay. Danni could, but I couldn't." She inhaled. "So, it was either I take my daughter back to a life that wasn't safe for her, or I leave her with my mother until I could give her a better life."

"You chose to protect her."

"Yeah, and my mother made sure that I haven't seen or spoken to her since."

"I'm sorry, Emily. You must miss her a lot."

"There is no pain comparable to losing your child." She shook herself. "But none of that will help you find the person killing these girls."

"But, if he's targeting Haven and you, it does give me important information. It tells me why you built this place."

"You think he's targeting Haven?" That was the last thing she needed right now, for a killer to be targeting her girls.

"Maybe. Can you think of anyone this place has seriously pissed off over the years?"

"What, you mean besides the pimps, drug dealers and abusive boyfriends, fathers, uncles, mothers, and others?"

"Well, do any of them in particular stand out?"

Emily frowned as she thought. "Well, there was one pimp who threatened to rape me to death a couple years ago."

JJ's eyebrows kissed her forehead. "He sounds charming."

"Oh very. He goes by Ro-Me-O."

"Seriously?"

* * *

_So finally some answers that I know many of you have been waiting for, though it's still going to be a little while until the anticipated reunion between Emily and Danni. However, I believe Morgan/Prentiss shippers will enjoy the next couple chapters. :) Do to the holiday there might not be an update next weekend, and I plan to start posting another chaptered story soon (that I had promised to someone), so updating on this one will likely slow down. Thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter and thank you for reading and whoever does, reviewing this chapter. And Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the US.  
_


End file.
